


Merry and Bright

by ladyknightley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/pseuds/ladyknightley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Ginny have gone through some tough times together, but maybe none as difficult as wrapping ALL the presents they've bought before the big day...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry and Bright

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of saccharine sweetness your dentist warns you about but IT'S CHRISTMAS I DON'T CARE. Enjoy the fluff :)

 

Harry Potter had had some tough times over Christmas.

There had been the years he’d live with the Dursleys, spent in a house that was decked out in the most tasteful Christmas decorations—except for his cupboard—and filled with presents—but not for him. The years he’d spent at Hogwarts or the Weasleys’ in his school years—filled with love, it was true, but also with the constant spectre of war and Voldemort fear. The year he’d spent on the run, his Christmas Day in a tent, barely conscious, with just Hermione for company and nothing to eat except a packet of stale mince pies they’d taken from an all-night muggle supermarket.

Then, the years after the war. The first few Christmases, as sad as they were joyful with all the losses and deaths hanging over them. The years he’d had to work on Christmas Day, spent being bored on call in the office, or stuck on watch somewhere bleak and lonely with only sheep and snow and a radio that only seemed to play a bizarre selection of Celestina Warbeck and George Michael tracks.

But nothing, it seemed, would be as tough as this year. He thought about the task that was (literally) facing him, and turned to his wife, who was wearing a matching expression of grim resignation. “I know,” she said, nodding.

“We’ve no one to blame but ourselves,” he tried, and she glared.

“Oh, don’t come that with me, Potter!” she snapped. “You’re not the one who—” Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Quicker than lightening, they both grabbed their wands, casting spells around the room to hide its contents, and peered around the door with all the subtlety of two highly trained Aurors.

“I think,” he whispered after a long moment in which nothing at all happened, “that the cost is clear.”

His wife was less quick to relax, but after several more moments where nothing continued to happen, she was forced to relax, too. “It was probably just the cat,” she agreed.

They turned back to the room, quickly spelling it back to its true form. “Nice reactions,” he said, as the furniture zoomed back to its original place.

“Thanks,” she nodded.

“There’s still space for you on the Aurors if you want it,” he offered. “Some of the kids we’ve got these days...I swear, they get younger every year. And can’t tell their arse from their elbow, either, let alone a Dark Wizard from a decoy from the Wheezes’.”

“Nah,” Ginny said. “I’ll pass. Someone’s gotta do the important jobs around here.”

“Quidditch reporting?”

“No. You know what.”

They both surveyed the task in front of them. “I do,” Harry agreed, grabbing a roll of wrapping paper and holding it in front of him like a knight’s spear. “Into battle once more?”

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Ginny said, wielding the Spellotape grimly.

“Do you think we spoil them?” Harry asked after a moment, eyeing the enormous pile of presents.

“Normally? No,” Ginny said. “I think they’re incredible children who are loved and lucky to have gifts and other nice things, but who behave well enough to deserve it, and understand that not all children are as fortunate as them, though no fault of their own. However,” she added firmly, affixing a gift tag on a neatly wrapped box with probably more force than was necessary, “having spent the day looking after all three of them when they’ve reached peak levels of pre-Christmas excitement _and_ having to then wrap all these _bloody_ toys...yes, they are the most spoilt children in the world. Next year, they can have a pair of socks each and think themselves lucky!”

“Why not go the whole hog and just leave them some coal in a stocking?” Harry asked, wrestling with a copy of _The Wriggly Book of Creepy-Crawlies_ that seemed determined to jump out of his hands.

“Because,” Ginny said, holding the book down with her knees so he could cover it in wrapping paper, “it’ll be muggins here who has to clean up the mess _that_ causes.”

“Good point,” Harry nodded. “And thanks.”

“Besides, didn’t the Dursleys send you a lump of coal one year?” Ginny asked lightly.

“No coal, but there was the year I received a coat-hanger,” Harry replied in the same tone. His wife laughed, then caught his eye.

“You’re not serious,” she said.

“Erm...yes,” he replied carefully, awaiting the explosion. Ginny had many fine qualities, but an ability to keep silent over his treatment by his mother’s relatives was not one of them.

“Hmm,” she said shortly, cutting some ribbon with a very audible snip.

“...that’s it?” he replied.

“Well,” she said, “if I start on them, I’ll end up shouting. And if I shout, I’ll wake the kids, who I’ve only just got off to sleep, and frankly, I can’t deal with that right now. Besides, I think a slower revenge might be a good idea. For example, we can give them a coat-hanger.”

“I don’t even know if they’re still at the same address...”

“I will personally hand-deliver it. And not through their letterbox, if you catch my drift,” Ginny said.

“James, or Al?” asked Harry, holding up a pair of novelty socks.

“Al,” said Ginny. “And don’t think I won’t!”

“I would never dream of underestimating you,” Harry said at once, then laughed.

“What?”

“I just remembered...we were talking about spoilt kids, but I remember Dudley at Christmas or on birthdays. He used to count the number of presents he got, and if each year, it wasn’t greater than the last year, he’d have a massive temper tantrum,” he explained. Ginny stared.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am!”

“You’re making that up,” she insisted. “No child is actually _that_ vile.”

“He was,” Harry nodded. “Like I say—our kids are _definitely_ not spoilt.”

“I can’t believe you would equate them to _that_ ,” Ginny said. “It’s such a false compliment. Like saying ‘oh, they’re really nice compared to say...Draco Malfoy’.”

“Well, they are!” Harry said, and she pulled a face. “Okay, I take your point. I don’t know. Our kids always had loads of what we didn’t, growing up—money, in your case, and love in mine. Your parents couldn’t afford fancy presents, and the Dursleys didn’t like me enough to bother. So obviously we both want to buy them all kinds of expensive things at Christmastime, I suppose in part to make up for that; it’s only natural. But I’ve always got Dudley at the back of my mind. I would never want to turn them into that...”

“Look at you, getting all psychoanalytical,” Ginny said. “I agree, though. Although,” and here she broke off to laugh slightly, causing him to look up from the present he was wrapping, “I don’t think we have to worry about them too much. They’re quite well-adjusted, all things considered.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she said, giggling again. “Merlin—I shouldn’t laugh, this is quite morbid really. But today...well. Okay, so, you know how we got Teddy an advent calendar, so he’d have one to open when he’s at ours, in addition to the one he’s got at his Gran’s?”

“Yes...” Harry said slowly.

“Well, today I overheard Lily asking James why is it that Teddy has _two_ advent calendars, and they only have one each,” she continued. “And before I could say anything, James goes, ‘Teddy gets two because his Mummy and Daddy are dead’.”

“Which, if you think about it, is _technically_ true,” said Harry.

“Then Al goes, ‘yes, but _Daddy’s_ Mummy and Daddy are dead, so why doesn’t _he_ get two advent calendars?’,” Ginny continued. “And so Lily said that maybe the big bad man who was mean to Daddy took away _all_ his advent calendars, and that’s why Mummy and Daddy don’t like him.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Harry.

“So I think we need to have another conversation about...you know...things,” Ginny said, “but maybe wait til after Christmas for that one.”

“The fact that Riddle used to do more than steal advent calendars—though he probably did that too, he was a bit of a git—might put a bit of a damper on things,” agreed Harry.

“That, and I was thinking that anything you say at this point that isn’t directly related to Christmas is going to go in one ear and out the other,” Ginny said drily. “You forget how completely exciting and all-consuming Christmas is at that age...”

“At that age?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Ginny, who was wearing pyjamas with reindeers on, underneath a novelty Christmas jumper, holly wreath earrings and had her hair tied back with tinsel.

“I,” she declared, “am a festive vision.”

“As always...”

“Oi!”

“Mmm...” Harry said, his mind drifting.

“Look,” Ginny said at once, “we’ve managed, so far, to tell the kids what happened during the war in a suitable way. They know the main events, broadly, and why it was bad, but they don’t know anything...graphic, or horribly traumatic. We couldn’t _not_ tell them—every time we go out in public, there’s someone who wants to shake your hand for being the Chosen One—so it’s not like we could hide it without becoming total hermits. But they’re not upset or scared by what they know, because we’ve always told them what’s age-appropriate. So, at some point, we’ll have to explain what happened to Remus and Tonks, and to your parents. But we’ll do it at a suitable time, in a way that won’t scare them, but also isn’t a lie, and it will be fine.”

“Do you think?”

“I _know_ ,” Ginny said firmly, “because that’s what we’ve always done.”

There was a pause as he watched her deftly wrap two gifts. “You always know just what to say,” he said eventually, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

Ginny smiled. “Nah,” she said. “I’m just making it up as I go along, really.”

“That’s parenting, eh?” said Harry. “So. In the New Year. We need to have a talk about...death, and the war. In a way that won’t traumatise our children forever, but also not confuse them. Bugger. Do you think there’s a book on this sort of thing?”

“Most likely,” Ginny said. “We’ll ask Hermione. Speaking of—have you seen the news today?”

“No, why?”

“Rita Skeeter’s got a new book out in the spring,” she replied. “Not, I think, entirely about you, but I think you have more than a small walk-on part. But worry not! I’ve been thinking about bulk-buying loo roll, you see, and...”

Harry laughed, then sighed. “I suppose Rita’s—”

“Rubbish,” supplied Ginny.

“Yes, that—it’s another thing we’ll have to talk to the kids about, eventually,” he said.  

“ _Eventually_ ,” Ginny stressed. “Look. At the moment, they’re the happiest kids in the world because it’s three days until Christmas and, as everyone knows, Christmas is the best thing in the world ever. We really, really don’t need to worry about talking to them right at this moment, so we’ve plenty of time to think about what to say and when, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You know what we do have to worry about, though?”

“Present wrapping?” Harry said ruefully.

“I’m afraid so,” agreed Ginny. “You know what isn’t upsetting them now, thank God? The war, and everything we had to go through. You know what _would_ devastate them? Everything being in a gift bag and not getting to rip open the paper.”

“It is half the fun,” Harry said, as she stood up. “Oi—where are you going?”

“You keep at it,” she said. “I’ll be right back. But I think we need reinforcements!”

“Ron and Hermione? Merlin, no,” Harry said. “I mean, they’re great, they really are. But I don’t fancy wrapping presents with a set square and Spellotape measured to the millimetre like Hermione would insist on. Come to think of it, what does Ron do with her presents?”

“Gift bags,” Ginny said. “It’s a Weasley trait. And obviously not them, no. I’m thinking reinforcements more along the lines of some wine and your favourite of Mum’s Celestina records. Oh—actually,” she added, as he pulled a terrible face. “Can you pop out to the cornershop and get some more chocolates?”

“Why?”

“Because obviously I am going to eat all the remaining advent calendar chocolate whilst we wrap, and we’ll have to replace it with something,” she said. “I’m not _that_ awful of a parent.”

“Alright, alright,” Harry said, getting to his feet. “What should I get?”

“Nothing too fancy, we don’t want to spoil them!” Ginny called. He snorted. “But hurry, before it snows!”

“It’s going to snow?” Harry asked, surprised. “The forecast didn’t say.”

“No,” said Ginny, sticking her head back around the door. “But I remain optimistic that we’re going to have a perfect white Christmas.”

“Alright Bing,” Harry said. “I’ll hurry.”

“If you do, I’ll stick a bow on something else and let you unwrap it!” she called.

Harry snorted. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a tough Christmas, after all.


End file.
